


hiding deep

by thisissirius



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 22:46:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8508475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissirius/pseuds/thisissirius
Summary: “I didn’t even think about it,” Robert says, eventually. “All this time, and it didn’t even occur to me.”

  “You wanted to bring him home.” Aaron steps forward, hovering awkwardly next to Robert’s elbow. 

  Robert looks up, eyes dark, his fingers trembling around the phone casing. “You want me to stop.”
robert realising andy isn't coming home prompts a talk with aaron.





	

**Author's Note:**

> because i hit my nano target, and robert's face when he realises andy isn't coming home just gets to me. 
> 
> unbetad because that's how i roll. 
> 
> i have a THING about robert's softer side. i hope it's not _too_ soft.

Aaron sees Diane and Doug to the door. Diane was adamant about her revenge, something Aaron half wishes she would drop, but only because Robert’s already worked up about Andy, he doesn’t need this on top of everything else. 

“Tell Robert—” Diane starts, sending a plaintive look up the stairs. 

“He meant well,” Aaron says, because it’s true, but also because Diane’s the only mother Robert has. 

“I know, pet.” Diane sighs. She pats Aaron’s arm and then leaves, Doug a half step behind. 

Closing the door, Aaron presses his forehead against it, giving himself a moment before going upstairs. Robert went up just after Rebecca left, phone in his hand, face pinched. It’s a look Aaron knows well, a look he’s seen too many times since the crash. He texts his mum to ask if she can make sure Liv gets home safe, and takes the stairs two at a time. The door to their bedroom is ajar, but there’s no noise coming from inside. 

Taking a deep breath, Aaron pushes open the door to see Robert sat on the edge of the bed, phone running through his fingers. He’s still dressed, has probably been staring at the phone this entire time. 

Aaron stands in the doorway, feels awkward; he doesn’t know how to make this better, if he’s even supposed to.

“I didn’t even think about it,” Robert says, eventually. “All this time, and it didn’t even occur to me.”

“You wanted to bring him home.” Aaron steps forward, hovering awkwardly next to Robert’s elbow. 

Robert looks up, eyes dark, his fingers trembling around the phone casing. “You want me to stop.”

Aaron does, but he knows Robert won’t. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Aaron tries to hold Robert’s gaze. He reaches over and pries the phone out of Robert’s grip. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”

For the first time, something like awareness flickers in Robert’s eyes. “Of course it does,” he says, immediately. 

“It hasn’t so far.” Aaron doesn’t say it to hurt. He and Robert are trying the honesty thing, and Aaron needs Robert to know how he feels. “If I asked you to stop, right now, would you?”

The silence is telling. Robert drops his eyes back to his knees. “It’s not — I know you don’t get it. Andy and I — we fight and I’ve hated him but he — you know, when he left, was the first time I called him brother and actually felt it?”

“Robert—”

“Don’t,” Robert says. It feels like the forest, about hearing a confession Robert’s dragged up from a place he never thought he’d have to access again. It hurts when Robert’s so vulnerable, when Aaron wants nothing more than to take every person who’s ever made Robert feel anything less than amazing, and punch them in the jaw. 

“I know you think you owe him.” Aaron remembers that conversation; perhaps Robert feels guilty, _should_ feel guilty, but that doesn’t mean he should risk everything to bring Andy home. “He might not want to come home.”

Robert snorts self-deprecatingly, but then his face shifts through a myriad of emotions. Aaron recognizes them all; sadness, guilt, _happiness_. It’s the last that catches him off guard. “I feel like —” Robert pauses, takes a breath like this is another confession, another deep secret. “I’m happy, for the first time in _years_ and it felt wrong,” Robert’s mouth twists around the word, reluctant, “to not have Andy here.”

Aaron doesn’t know what to say. He knows what it is for Robert to admit to something like that. Robert, who’s spent many nights whispering secrets into Aaron’s skin about their past when he thinks Aaron’s asleep; about how much he’s hated Andy, how alone he felt, like an outsider. Aaron doesn’t know how much is imagined, how much is real, but it’s enough for him that Robert believes it. 

“I just want to do something right by him,” Robert admits, quietly. So low that Aaron almost doesn’t catch it. When he does, his chest seizes, and he’s reaching for Robert. 

“Look at me,” Aaron demands, a hand on Robert’s cheek, the other curled around the back of his neck. “You have.”

“How?” Robert asks, mouth curling up into a familiar sneer. “How have I ever done right by Andy?”

There are shadows hanging over the both of them where Andy’s concerned, scars that might — _will_ — never fade from either of them, but Aaron’s not going to let the ghost of this cut any deeper into Robert than it has already. “You helped him escape, you gave him freedom.”

Aaron knows it’s not freedom, not really, but he knows better than to say that aloud. He needs Robert to see, really see, that he’s done his bit, that he’s risked so much for Andy already. 

Robert lets out a slow breath, eyes darting left and right but never once leaving Aaron’s face. “I’m sorry.”

The words sound foreign in that tone. Robert’s said sorry so many times, in so many ways, but never this open, never this _honest_. 

“I know.” Aaron draws Robert closer, presses a gentle kiss to his mouth. 

“If I —” Robert doesn’t draw back too far, keeps his nose pressed to Aaron’s cheek. “If I keep doing this, will you leave?”

Aaron’s heart aches. “Rob, I’m behind you, no matter what.” Aaron doesn’t like it, wants to be done with this, but he’d never leave Robert to face this alone, would never leave Robert _at all_. 

“Promise?” The word is a whisper against Aaron’s lips. 

Once again, Aaron wants to hurt everyone who’s ever made Robert feel abandoned. “I love you, you muppet.” Aaron squeezes the back of Robert’s neck, kisses him gently. “Of course I promise.”

Robert drops forward, curling around Aaron. In a moment he’ll be the same old Robert taking Aaron apart with his hands, his teeth, that fucking smirk. He’ll bury this vulnerable Robert back down deep until the next time Aaron coaxes him out, drags those secrets kicking and screaming into the open. For now, Aaron strokes his fingers through Robert’s hair, kisses his temple. 

Robert’s eyes clear, though still wet, and his mouth quirks up into the smile he keeps just for Aaron. The smile Aaron grabs with both hands, imprints on his mind so that he’ll never forget. “I love you too.”

The next kiss is hard, passionate; the kind of kiss that leads to something more, to Robert’s hands on Aaron’s skin, his teeth grazing Aaron’s neck. It’s what they both need, drowning any doubts, any worries, narrowing the world down to _them_. 

_I’ll protect you ___, Aaron thinks fiercely. It scares him, sometimes, the things they would do, the lengths they would go. It shouldn’t comfort him, the thought that if this is what Robert’s doing for Andy, to help _Andy_ , then what he’d do for Aaron is —

_I know what you’d do for me._

It hadn’t been a lie. He knows what Robert would do, how far he’d go. It should scare him, should have him running for the hills, but it doesn’t, because he knows what he would do for Robert, how far _he’d_ go to make sure Robert was safe, alive, _his. ___

Nobody’s taking Robert from Aaron, not now, not after all this time.

(Not even Andy.) 


End file.
